Thursday, October 23, 2008

9 Foreign Rip-Offs Cooler Than The Hollywood Originals

You think Batman's pretty cool, don't you? Probably couldn't be any cooler, right? Wrong. Step outside of America, and you find a Batman who guns down bad guys with a revolver, and has naked sex with the ladies he rescues.

It's true, other countries have been working around the clock to improve our fictional heroes in every way. Here are 9 ripoffs that are better than the US originals, proving you can create something awesome no matter where you're from or how limited your budget is, as long as you don't give a shit about copyrights.

#9.

The Turkish Batman - Yarasa Adam ("Betmen")

The American Original:

As night looms over Gotham City, Batman and Robin rev up the Batmobile and stalk the shadows for the cowardly criminal element.

The Foreign Rip-Off:

As the sun beats down on the Anatolian steppe, Betmen and Turkish Robin cruise around in a shitty sedan and pump hot lead into the cowardly criminal element.

The music sounds like a swarm of killer bees playing the sitar in an empty grain silo.

Why It's Better:

There's a lot to love about the Turkish Batman, namely his ability to do more with less. Whereas the American Batman cloaks his severe mental illness with gee-whiz gadgets and, well, a cloak, Betmen has no need for capes, technology, or subtlety. He knows that dressing up like a deranged trapeze artist and borrowing the wife's Chevy Nova for the afternoon will do way more to frighten felons than any bat-shaped airplane.

This is also the first of two foreign Batman movies on this list with nudity in it. You're off to a good start, rest of the world.

#8.

The Indian Superman - Dariya Dil (1988)

The American Original:

In his 1978 Film, Superman apprehends those who commit crimes. The love of Lois Lane helps the superpowered Kryptonian maintain his humanity.

The Foreign Rip-Off:

In this Bollywood extravaganza, Superman and Indian Lois Lane (a.k.a. Indian Spiderwoman) use the power of dance to commit crimes against humanity.

Why It's Better:

To be fair, Dariya Dil isn't an Indian Superman movie at all (the only plot synopsis we could find online said it was a romantic comedy about tax evasion or something). But nonetheless, we dig its freaky take on the Superman mythos.

The problem with the American Superman is he's basically a god trapped in the mind of a crossing guard. His M.O. for crime prevention is hovering above the ground, arms crossed with an exasperated frown on his face. Come on! We're talking about Superman here, continents shift when he yawns and oceans boil when he farts in the tub. But it's wasted on a guy who has the personality of a mannequin.

Why is that happening?

The Indian Superman has no such hang-ups. He'll dance like no one's watching. He'll canoodle with his girl at 5,000 feet. And--at the 2:33 mark--he'll use his superbreath to blow a criminal at the force of escape velocity into the vacuum of space, where the perp will orbit the Earth as a frozen corpse for decades. In short, Indian Superman just does not give a fuck.

#7.

The Soviet Winnie the Pooh - Vinni Pukh (1969)

The American Original:

In 1966, the Walt Disney Company released a 26-minute short about A.A. Milnes famous bear searching for honey. An icon and merchandising empire was born.

The Foreign Rip-Off:

In 1969, Soviet animation studio Soyuzmultfilm released an 11-minute short about A.A. Milnes famous medved searching for med.

Why It's Better:

Where do we begin? First off, the Soviet Winnie is way more macho - the Ruskie version replaces the American Winnie's foppish lilt with some hard, incomprehensible Cyrillic barking. He could be screaming about honey. He could also be screaming about Ivan Drago. Who knows? All we can surmise is that this cartoon was probably animated at gunpoint in a gulag somewhere.

A bite from a radioactive spider transforms dorky Peter Parker into the Amazing Spider-Man! With his newfound spider powers, Peter dukes it out with streetwise goons such as Doctor Octopus.

The Foreign Rip-Off:

A magical bracelet from a telepathic spider-alien transforms motorcyclist Takuya Yamashiro into the Japanese Spiderman! With his newfound spaceship and giant samurai robot, Takuya dukes it out with intergalactic fruitcakes such as Professor Monster.

Sound too absurd? Well, watch the show's intro and brace yourself for the best Spiderman theme song in any language.

It's amazing what a couple bottles of sake do for a children's show theme.

Why It's Better:

Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of our Spider-Man is his whiny self-doubt. Trust the Japanese to get down to brass tacks and just fucking nail the character's true appeal. It's like they said, "Screw that annoying pathos. This is a show about a man in a leotard who walks on the ceiling. We've gotta add some giant robots and take this shit to the next level."

"With great power comes great respons- oh hell, let's just give him a car."

#5.

The Turkish E.T. -Badi (1983)

The American Original:

E.T., an adorable animatronic extraterrestrial, lands in a SoCal suburb and teaches a lonely boy that he has a friend somewhere in the universe.

The Foreign Rip-Off:

Badi, a midget wearing a stained turtleneck and a mask resembling an uncooked prawn, lands in a Turkish slum and teaches the audience that the universe is filled with unremitting horror.

Why It's Better:

In E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, Spielberg made the titular character as cute, anthropomorphic and genital-less as possible - after all, a disgusting, inhuman, and massively endowed alien is no way to shill Reese's Pieces to the kids.

The filmmakers of Badi were unencumbered by franchise deals or a large budget and thus had no need to make the alien appealing to children. Thanks to inimitable Turkish special FX, Spielberg's plucky alien became a terrifying, shambling garbage pile:

What's so great about Badi is that the film realistically depicts humanity's first contact with aliens. Forget flying bicycles, glowing fingers and heartfelt moments. It's more likely we'll meet saggy-bladdered beings who fart smoke and scream like Tom Morello guitar solos. And like Turkish Elliot's Turkish family, we humans will run around, losing our goddamn Turkish minds.

#4.

The Italian Batman - The Bathman dal pianeta Eros (1982)

The American Original:

Batman, the famed defender of Gotham City, and his acrobatic sidekick Robin team up to put villains like Catwoman, The Joker and The Penguin behind bars.

The Foreign Rip-Off:

Bathman, the famed lover from the planet Eros, and his masturbating sidekick Robina team up to diddle villains like Catwoman, The Joker, and the gay Penguin.

Just as the Japanese Spiderman enhances the hero by stripping away his emotional baggage, the Italian Batman bravely reinvents the stoic Caped Crusader as a happy-go-lucky boning machine. This should be a welcome change of pace for fans dissatisfied with Christian "I Gargle with Whiskey and Thumbtacks" Bale's portrayal.

Additionally, the Italian Batman is an alien. This revelation will indubitably add a new layer of richness to ongoing internet message board debates over whether Batman would "pwnz0rs" other pop cultural figures such as Superman, Wolverine, or Grimace from the old McDonald's ads.

Finally, this film is a bold new step for the pornographic medium as a whole. American porn is all "moneyshot this" and "facial that." As the clip below demonstrates, Italian smut peddlers really know how to inject some fun into erotica. And when we say "fun," we mean "bicycles!"

#3.

The Chinese Popeye -The Dragon Lives Again (1976)

The American Original:

In his hometown of Sweet Haven, Popeye goes on adventures with his friends Olive Oyl and Wimpy, all the while vexing his arch-nemesis Bluto.

The Foreign Rip-Off:

In Chinese Hell, Popeye goes on adventures with his friends Bruce Lee and Caine from Kung Fu, all the while vexing his arch-nemeses Dracula, Clint Eastwood, the Exorcist, and James Bond.

We have now officially reached the point in the article where the jokes write themselves.

Why It's Better:

In the years following Bruce Lee's 1973 death, Asian studios released a series of low-budget "Bruceploitation" movies to capitalize on the martial arts phenom's passing. Armed with a small army of Bruce Lee imitators (i.e. Bruce Li, Bruce Lei, Lee Bruce) and a shared assumption that the audience was dumb as a load of bricks, the studios milked poor Bruce's corpse for all the zombie milk they could get.

Perhaps the most offensive offering was The Dragon Lives Again. Released less than three years after Lee's death, the film was infamous for its Mad Libs-style cast of characters, leading man Bruce Leung's utter lack of resemblance to Bruce Lee, and the many jokes about the deceased star's giant penis. To see why some folks might have been upset, imagine an upcoming Bernie Mac biopic in which Bernie (who is inexplicably Mexican) must save the underworld from Indiana Jones, Martin Sheen, Saruman, and Jigsaw from Saw with the help of Alf, Snagglepuss, and his own elephantitis-wracked testicles.

The silver lining to this shitshow is Chinese Popeye. That repulsive two second sequence of him horking down a wad of green cellophane made our stomachs churn less than the entirety of Robin Williams's Popeye.

Beloved cartoon characters/Hamas sympathizers Farfour and Assud team up with Hamas to win childrens' affections/encourage them to eat the Jews.

And you thought we were kidding.

Cartoon characters and politics have been historical bedfellows - during World War II, Daffy Duck fought the Nazis and Superman promoted cross-cultural understanding with the Japanese. In modern Palestine, the creators of the kid's program Tomorrow's Pioneers have recruited Bugs and Mickey to overthrow the world's Zionist puppet masters. They have also apparently hired Borat as their screenwriter.

We at Cracked have already reported on Farfour, the high-pitched, Jew-hating mouse. But since then, Farfour's had a spat of bad luck, namely getting punched to death by a bloodthirsty Israeli for refusing to sell his land.

With Farfour gone, Tomorrow's Pioneers ignored the obvious theological conundrum of a rodent becoming a martyr and foisted hosting duties upon Assud, an equally creepy and shrill rabbit. Assud's hosting gig was short-lived as he soon had his hands lopped off as punishment for robbery.

The devil made him do it. Seriously.

If history is any indicator, the next host of Tomorrow's Pioneers will be an anti-Semitic Yogi the Bear who will be publicly stoned for his addiction to picnic baskets.

There is no precedent for 3 Dev Adam. It is the alpha and omega of cinematic narrative.

The Foreign Rip-Off:

In swinging 70s Istanbul, Captain America and Mexican Lucha Libre superstar El Santo have teamed up to take down the most perverted counterfeiter in town...Spiderman?

Why It's Better:

The beauty of 3 Dev Adam (or "The 3 Mighty Men") is that it's that movie you wrote when you were 6 but with all the sex and violence you love at 25. And nothing quite epitomizes this man-child aesthetic like Turkish Spider-Man.

3 Dev Adam transforms Spider-Man, the most nobly nebbish of superheroes, into the Turkish Hannibal Lecter. Watch below as he murders a woman with a boat propeller, strangles a naked woman in a bathtub with a telephone cord, and feeds a man's eyes to a hamster.

"Spider-Man, Spider-Man, strangling Turkish Spider-Man..."

These scenes bring up a whole host of questions that the movie has absolutely no interest in answering. Why the hell would Spider-Man counterfeit lira? Why didn't they just call Turkish Captain America "Captain Turkey?" What the hell is up with Spider-Man's eyebrows? Throw out all questions, friends. If you agree not to question its central conceits, then 3 Dev Adam will tickle your corneas with wonder.